


All That Pain

by evilwriter37



Series: Comfortember 2020 [9]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Flashbacks, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Nogitsune Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:41:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27639025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evilwriter37/pseuds/evilwriter37
Summary: After the nogitsune, Stiles suffers from recurring flashbacks.
Relationships: Lydia Martin/Stiles Stilinski
Series: Comfortember 2020 [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2008639
Comments: 3
Kudos: 26





	All That Pain

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry if any of this gets confusing. I wrote this in the style of post modernism to try to capture the chaos within Stiles’ mind.
> 
> Prompt: flashbacks

Blood on his hands. Hands are quivering. Blood. They were Void’s hands, but they were his hands too. The hilt of a sword. Twist, twist, twist. Screams. 

Stiles blinked, pulling himself back to reality. It was easy due to the fact that someone was calling his name, but then he remembered that he was in class. Fuck, he was going to have to answer a question. 

And he tried his best, and failed, and there were some giggles from other students. Stiles just looked down at his notebook, trying to stop the shaking in his hands. 

_ Drip drip drip _ . Blood. His own, trailing down to his foot. Steel jaws clamped around his leg. Pain. Cold. Terrible cold. Shaking, always shaking. A voice, an awful, guttural voice. Chalk. Self. Vanished. Self is gone. Riddles. Riddles in the dark. Pulling on his leg. Screams. 

Stiles stood in front of his bathroom mirror, staring at himself, forcing himself to look into his own eyes. They were his, weren’t they? There was no dark cruelty hiding under that amber-brown. He felt behind his ear. The brand from the Oni was gone, but it had still been there at one point. He was himself. 

Allison’s funeral. He wore a black trench coat, stood away from everyone else. It was his fault. His fault. True, Void hadn’t been in his body when it had happened, and it had been one of the Oni that had stabbed her, but how was it not his fault? Scott tried to talk to him, but Stiles walked away through the misty gloom of the cemetery. 

Scarlet running. Explosions. Terror, fear. Twist, twist, twist the sword. Listen to the screams. 

Stiles isn’t sleeping. He knows he should be. He’s fine, right? The nogitsune is gone and he’s alive.

But still, he can’t sleep. Every time he lays his head down he is filled with dread and nightmares. Dark circles bloom under his eyes as the days drag on. 

Pain. So much pain. And Void feasted on it. He did terrible things to reap the reward of the suffering of others. 

Lydia was here. Why was Lydia here? Had Stiles even let her in? He couldn’t remember, because when he looked at her face, all he felt was guilt. She’d told him the nogitsune hadn’t harmed her while she was captured by him, but Stiles had the distinct feeling that she was lying. Whatever Void had done to her hadn’t left any blood, but it might as well have. He was absolutely covered in it, drenched in red. 

“Stiles.”

“Hm?”

Sitting on his bed, twirling red yarn around his finger. Right, yes, he was here in his bedroom with Lydia. And everything was okay.

“Are you sleeping?” Lydia asked. 

Stiles decided to be honest with her. Why couldn’t he be?

“Not really.” He scratched at the back of his neck. His hand came away with blood, and he felt the warmth of it trailing over his fingers. But no one saw the blood but him. It was his burden to carry.

Lydia put a hand on his knee, and Stiles looked at her. The look on her face was so endearing.

“How come?”

“Memories,” Stiles answered. “Flashbacks.”

“About… about the nogitsune?” No one had discussed that demon since his undoing, stepping carefully around Stiles and that topic. But now, it had to come out.

Stiles nodded, hoarsely said: “Yeah.” He tossed the yarn aside. “I just… feel like there’s blood all over me, like everything that happened is my fault.”

Lydia gave him an exasperated look. “Stiles, you couldn’t have done anything. It’s not your fault.”

“But he used my body.”

“Against your will!” Lydia exclaimed. She stood, faced him. “Look, Stiles, I know everything feels horrible right now, but you have to understand that that was all the nogitsune. None of it was you.”

Pounding, crying, screaming. Trapped. Trying to get out of his own head. Go. Games. Trickster. Screams. 

Stiles didn’t agree with her, but he nodded to pacify her. Lydia gave a small smile, came over and took him by the shoulders. “Now, Stiles, you’re in desperate need of sleep. Do you have anything that would help?”

“I take Melatonin from time to time.”

“Great. Where is it?”

So Lydia got the Melatonin for him, and Stiles let it dissolve on his tongue. The dissolvable ones acted fast, and he found himself feeling drowsy within the next five minutes. He took Lydia’s hand.

“Stay with me?”

Lydia nodded. “Of course.”

Together, they laid down in the bed. Stiles didn’t know what this was. He wasn’t dating Lydia, but he could be intimate with her in ways he couldn’t with other people. They wrapped their arms around each other, and Stiles rested his chin on the top of her head as she bowed it against his neck. She smelled like lavender.

Stiles smiled softly, and drifted into a nightmare-less sleep. 


End file.
